


Combustion Principle

by kashinoha



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Footnotes, canonically Jewish character, liberal use of science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7115548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashinoha/pseuds/kashinoha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin is sixty-six, but sometimes he is twenty. Jax never went to college, but he can recite the four laws of thermodynamics by heart. </p><p>They burn, and it’s wonderful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Combustion Principle

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a little off my game after not writing anything for two months, so this little piece is to help get me back in the swing of things. I really wanted to explore the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. bond in a different way. Hope you all like!

 

**Combustion Principle  
**

All characters © DC Comics

 

 

 

These days, people toss around words like “psychic” and “ESP” with little gravity, blanketing them under the ruse of science fiction novels and dusty little tarot shops on street corners.

Martin’s done his research. He’s read Robert Stoller’s 1973 paper _Telepathic Dreams. 1_ He’s also read J.B. Rhine’s 1934 findings, back when he coined the term ESP, and his second book _ESP-60. 2_ Those guys were right up there with his other fanboy crushes Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, to name a few.

So when he finally does merge with another mind Martin promptly forgets everything he’s read, because F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. is nothing like that.

Martin imagines a two-way street. All the shops along it have _OPEN_ signs and there’s never any traffic.

Jax imagines a yard full of cars, their hoods open to let the rain in. The machinery inside is intricate and beautiful and you almost don’t want to touch it because you’re not _supposed_ to touch it, only look and understand how each piece makes the car run.

That’s kind of what it’s like.

But also, not at all.

 

 

 

They’d been Firestorm three months before Rip Hunter picked them up (one of them, at least), but getting used to a bond that surpasses mere ions takes time.

And no, Martin is not talking about the random erections, the sudden desire to watch the game, or the Millennial slang that seems to want to pop up unannounced in his daily speech like ants over a fallen apple.

Nor is Jax talking about his newfound affinity for cottage cheese, his occasional presbyopia, or the habit he’s picked up of twisting a ring on his finger that isn’t actually there.

It’s how Martin knows that Jax still has feelings for Kendra, and that he won’t let anyone use his phone because his background wallpaper is a picture of his mom.

It’s how Jax knows that Martin (Grey) has wanted a Nobel since the age of ten, and that ever since the particle explosion rats have held a certain revulsion for him.

It’s how it rains and Martin feels a dull, grinding ache in his knee.

It’s how they pass a pizza place and Jax thinks _Ronald._

They’ve gotten better at tuning the other out, when they need their privacy. For them, it is not a question of simply shutting themselves in their quarters and bio-locking the door like Sara does when she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, or Ray and Kendra when they need a moment. The _Waverider’s_ security means nothing to Firestorm.

Because for them, no door is ever locked.

 

 

 

“You guys know it’s kind of creepy when you do that, right?” Ray asks on a Sunday, when Martin and Jax are arguing over the _Waverider’s_ hypothetical impulse range despite the fact that neither one of them actually knows anything about rockets. 3

Jax frowns. “Do what?” he asks.

Seemingly at a loss, Ray clears his throat and says, “Y’know. The thing where you, uh…” He wiggles a finger between them.

“Where you finish each other’s sentences,” Sara says pointedly. Ironically.

Martin and Jax share a look.

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you guys haven’t noticed it,” says Sara. Her eyes narrow. “You really haven’t,” she marvels, crossing her arms over her chest.

Jax promptly shuts up about APCP motors and Martin goes back to cleaning his glasses with a small cloth. Neither of them speak for a while after that, as if afraid they might say the same thing.

 

 

 

The random erections aren’t exactly comfortable (especially for Martin, who often has to excuse himself because there is no plausible way to explain how the med bay or Mister Rory’s tenth failed attempt at stir fry4 can possibly be sexy, and explaining that he occasionally has the libido of a twenty-year-old is both awkward and insulting), but the random waves of emotion are somehow worse.

One night Jax is watching the _Star Trek_ reboot with Sara because he’s made it his mission to catch her up on all decent films post-2008 when he feels a lump form in his throat.

It’s not even during a sad part, is the thing. She’s green, he’s hiding half-naked under the bed. It’s the least-angsty part of the movie. But Jax has never felt more like bursting into tears. 

He chokes out something about getting water, which earns him a raised eyebrow from Sara but he doesn’t care, he just needs to find Grey.

Grey’s in the kitchen, poking forlornly at potatoes and broccoli with his fork but making no move to actually eat them. He looks up when Jax stumbles into the doorway with a sheen of tears in his eyes and huffs a breath.

“I should have expected,” he says, grim. Grey waves his fork at an empty spot at the little kitchen island. “Come, Jefferson. Sit.”

“What’s wrong?” Jax asks, wiping his face with the heel of his hand as he lowers himself into a chair. “I felt…”

“Did I ever tell you that Clarissa loves to cook?”

Jax shakes his head. They are in the time vortex, somewhere between the dawn of ages and the collapse of civilization itself—but no matter when they are, Jax has noticed, Grey always refers to his wife in the present tense.

Grey smiles again. “It’s no wide stretch to say that she makes some of the best mashed potatoes in the Midwest,” he says.

“I’m sure if we ask, Rip can drop you off for a day—“Jax starts, but is interrupted by the clink of Grey setting down his fork.

“We’ve made too many enemies on this,” Grey pauses for words, “crusade. I’d rather have her safe until we take care of business. Even…” he trails off again, looking down at the bland, lumpy potatoes on his plate. “Even at the expense of my happiness.”

Jax says nothing. He does not need their psychic connection to understand this one; it’s why he hasn’t visited his mom. So he gets up, grabs a plate, and heats up some potatoes of his own because even if there is no such thing as dinnertime in space he’s still gotta eat.

He sets down his plate across the table and pulls up a chair. Grey looks surprised for a moment, then smiles.

“I have to warn you Jefferson, these potatoes are quite dry.” He grimaces. “There was no butter.”

“Does Clarissa use butter?”

Grey gives him a flat, pinched look that says, _What kind of protozoan doesn’t use butter?_ This makes the last of Jax’s tears dry up and he feels something in his (Grey’s) throat loosen a little. Jax pokes at his plate and pops a potato into his mouth.

“Tell me more about her,” he says, chewing.

 

 

 

Then there’s the time they travel to the prairie, because who picks a goddamn prairie to build a doomsday device—oh that’s right, Vandal Savage and his semi-mortal army—and Martin learns the hard way that Jefferson has one of the worst cases of hay fever he has ever seen.

Jax, Rory, Snart, Sara, and Kendra leave the ship to do reconnaissance on the site, and Martin and Ray are left discussing quantum splicing in the control room. Which turns into a brainstorm on energy conservation because they are goddamn scientists and there’s no one around to stop them.

Martin’s in the middle of explaining how the tin box Ray uses to store the suit could also function as a charger for the suit’s power thrusters, reaching entropic epiphany, when he starts sneezing and can’t seem to stop.

Ray, looking equal parts awkward and alarmed, asks if he is alright.

“Forgive me, Mister Palmer,” Martin manages, between violent sneezes. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

Oh, but he does. And is Jefferson certainly going to get an earful when he gets back.

By the time Jefferson does return, however, some of Martin’s annoyance has faded because he’s starting to feel how truly miserable the boy is. Jefferson is a mess, earning him pitiful glances from the rest of the team (save for Rory and Snart, who look more amused than anything).

Martin raises an eyebrow. “I think you know where you need to go, Jefferson.”

Jefferson just glares at him with puffy eyes and stomps off in the direction of the med bay.

 

 

 

Life goes on. Martin studies the fire of stars, Jax repairs engines so things can run properly. Since he can’t anymore.

Martin brings Jax lunch when Jax is hungry (because he knows, he always knows) and no explanation is needed when Jax shows up in his quarters with a glass of water and some Advil for that headache.

Time wants to happen, but so do they. They sometimes share a body, which normally should lead to some highly inappropriate jokes, but Jax and Martin never see it that way. Their bond is the least sexual thing imaginable—and yet at the same time it is so intimate that it extends beyond such base physical trivialities.  

It is rapture, joy, an exploding nebula.

As Firestorm, they become a single being. But it is more than that; it is a sense of cosmic oneness that Vostok never experienced, that no one truly has if they are only human.

When they merge, it’s as if the gravity holding galaxies together could fall apart.

They burn, and it is wonderful.

 

 

 

“So what happens if you, uh, have to go to the bathroom as Firestorm?” asks Ray.

Jax shakes his head and yelps, _“What?”_ at the same time Martin says, “I beg your pardon?” sounding highly offended.

They are on stakeout duty, if you consider camping out in the apartment of one of Savage's followers until he returns stakeout. It’s more like hide and seek, if you asked Jax.

Ray is flipping through the settings on his atom suit, feigning disinterest. “I’m not curious or anything,” he replies. “Just wondering.”

“We don’t.” Martin says flatly. Jax is still blinking; it’s not that he never noticed before, but…well okay, he never noticed before.

Ray frowns and powers down the screen on his arm. “How is that possible?”

Jax makes a face. “Why you wanna know this stuff, Ray?”

“Do you have any idea how fascinating it is?” says Ray. “Not the bathroom stuff, I mean—but what you guys are. Like, I know it was sort of an accident, but you technically achieved nuclear transmut—“

“Okay, okay,” Jax cuts him off before Ray can slip into one of his quicksand pits of scientific explanation and drag the rest of them down with him.

Amazingly, Ray seems to catch the hint. “One last question, Professor,” he says, biting his lip. “I'd been meaning to ask. If Jax gets hurt when you’re merged, do you feel it too?”

“I don’t feel it,” replies Martin. He removes his glasses and begins to clean them on the front of his shirt.

Jax suddenly feels uncomfortable. He looks over at Grey, who is still cleaning his glasses. By now he’s come to recognize the glasses-cleaning as a deflecting method, the same way Cold uses glib and puns and Sara goes off to punch things.

It’s not his discomfort at all, Jax thinks. It's Grey's, because—

“You’re lying,” he realizes, incredulous. “You told me you don’t feel it when I get hurt.”

“I don’t feel it,” Martin protests. “At least, not like you do.”

“What do you mean?” Ray prompts.

“When we merge, we literally become one organism. Our heart rates, brain waves, EEG patterns—everything is exactly the same,” Martin explains, repositioning his glasses on his face. “Now when someone sustains an injury, certain parts of the brain, the nociceptors, light up.”

“Nociceptors?” asks Jax.

“Pain receptors,” Ray explains.

“These are nerve cells that send signals to the brain that make you feel pain,” Martin continues. “If Jefferson’s nociceptors are activated while we are Firestorm, then mine are as well.”

“Even though you’re not injured yourself, your pain receptors react the same way Jax’s do,” Ray concludes, eyes wide.

Jax squints. “So you’re sayin’ your brain tells you to feel pain even if you’re not physically hurt?”

“I have a similar neurological response, yes,” Martin nods.

Jax’s squint becomes dangerous. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“I didn’t want to worry you, my dear boy. Besides, it’s not like we get injured all that often.”

“That’s not the point, man!” Jax exclaims, shaking his head. “I don’t like the idea that I’m hurtin’ you out there.”

Martin turns to him, smiling a wry smile. “Call this even for me forcing you to become Firestorm, drugging you, and almost getting you killed throughout numerous points in history?”

“I—“ Jax’s anger deflates with a sad little _whoosh_ because as aggravating as Grey can be, it is difficult to stay mad at him for long. They share a look. Jax's says, _We'll discuss this later._

 _And I'll make it just as difficult,_ says Martin's countering stare.

“Well,” Ray cuts through the awkward silence, “I’ll be right back. I’ve gotta hit the head.” 5

Jax tears his gaze away from Grey. “Can’t you do it in the suit?” he asks, innocently. He holds up his hands when Ray’s eyes bug out. “I’m not curious or anything. Just wondering.”

Martin sighs and massages his temple.

 

 

 

Patterns develop, after a while. Snart and Rory have a history of getting arrested. Ray has a history of accidentally causing explosions of varying magnitude. Sara has a history of disappearing. Kendra has a history of dying.

Maybe it’s something about how Jax still has some of his baby fat around the cheeks, or how Martin dresses like a Harvard professor and sometimes has trouble remembering peoples’ names, but both of them have a history of getting kidnapped. 

Which generally turns out okay when the day is over and everybody’s helped themselves to Rip’s cognac 6; when Gideon dims the lights of the ship’s corridors so shadows blend, when only Cold and Sara are able to successfully stifle their yawns.

The problem is after.

Martin jolts awake with a sickening thud, and his first thought is that this is it, he’s finally having a heart attack. Fear grays his vision, and it takes a surprisingly long time before Martin realizes that it does not belong to him.  

So he slips on a fleece robe, ties it around the middle, and hurries over to his partner’s quarters. Gideon easily overrides the bio lock to reveal Jax, who his clutching his covers and heaving great big gulps of air.

“Jefferson,” Martin says, shuffling over to the bed because he can still _feel_ it, “Jefferson, look at me.”

It takes Jax a moment before he can unclench his eyelids but he does, lashes wet and glistening in the muted light of a digital clock on the wall. “Grey,” he pants, trembling. “Grey, I’m—I’m sorry, man, it was, I didn’t mean to—“

“I know, I know,” Martin says. He sits next to Jax on the bed (his knees give twin cracks but he pays them no mind). “It’s okay.”

Perhaps it is a good thing that they don’t need to talk about it. He is not really the comforting type. Reluctantly, Martin reaches out and pats the boy on the shoulder. Jax is sweating through his tee shirt.

“You will always be safe, Jefferson.”

Jax gives something between a laugh and a sob. “Even when I’m gettin’ stabbed and turned into a bird brain?” he asks.

“Even then.” Martin arches an eyebrow in the dark and says, “It seems we have made some very unusual friends on this trip, and while I cannot deny their unruliness, there is something to be said for their reliability.”

“Rory would laugh if he heard you callin’ him ‘reliable,’” Jax says.

Martin makes a face. “Yes, I imagine he would.”

As Jax’s sweat slowly cools he begins to shiver, but he makes no effort to get back into bed.

“Do you want me to stay?” Martin asks. Even if he does not need to.

Jax nods, because despite the room being pitch black, he knows Grey can see.

 

 

 

Unemployment doesn’t get solved in a hundred years. Jax observes that Martin always stops for the homeless, even when all he has in his pockets are paper clips and some lint. Martin offers words of kindness, saying them with a smile and a wetness in his eye like he is talking to someone dead.

Jax doesn’t ask about Ronnie. Doesn’t need to. He knows Ronnie, knew Ronnie, like some part of him knows Clarissa. He’s never had a lover7 but there is a pang of separation in his chest, sitting there small and hard like coal that his flames cannot touch.

He makes sure the pockets of his clothes all have loose change in them and watches some life seep back into Grey’s strained, white face when he offers a coin.

 

 

 

Some days, being Firestorm is hard.

Martin’s stomach gives a lurch and he has to excuse himself that one afternoon Mick picks up pizza. 8

Jax talks more with his hands, and his sarcasm has become a bit dry. He sees it, and a small part of him his afraid. He wants to ask Grey what might happen if they remain Firestorm for an extended period of time. If one day they can’t separate. If they will start to become even more like each other.

If they’ll wake up one morning and not be able to tell who is who.

But of course there is no answer to that, so Jax never asks.

Superbowl Sundays become a celebrated holiday on Martin’s Jewish calendar and Jax develops an intense dislike for rats.

Martin asks Jax why he hung mirrors in his quarters.

In response, Jax recites the First Law of thermodynamics at the table and Ray Palmer drops his fork in surprise.

 

 

 

Days on the _Waverider_ are not always space pirates and angry cowboys.

On these days they all go their separate ways, taking comfort in things that remind them of home or a time when they were happy.

With the exception of Mick, who sleeps, mostly, they just think.

Martin thinks of time travel, Grandfather Paradoxes, and wonders what Barry Allen is doing at this moment.

Jax tinkers with a minor engine in the base room9 and thinks about speech. Rip speaks with a weight, like there are a thousand stories tied to each word. Kendra’s speech seems normal at first, but when she gets angry or excited an accent pops up that no one can quite identify. Sara’s accent is whatever she wants it to be.

While Jax is lost in thought, Cold walks by. He nods at the open duct in the wall and says, “You might need a degree for that, kid,” in that slow, deliberate way of his that’s either an act or a habit. Probably a little of both. 

In his quarters, Martin turns a page in his Brian Greene book and sighs. He thinks about how fragile time is, able to be bent by anybody who’s lost things and wants them back. He thinks that like the Time Masters, who thought they could control Cause and Effect and Chaos, he once thought he could control nuclear fission.

Maybe, he thinks, as somewhere in the ship’s belly Jefferson drops a wrench on his foot and pain shoots up Martin’s big toe, you’re never supposed to put leashes on these things.

And perhaps that is the beauty they hold. 

 

 

 

One morning Jax wakes up in Florence with a sense of pride he knows is not his like a warm buzz under his skin. It’s pleasant. He wonders if it is Grey’s birthday.

“You’re in a good mood today,” he prompts at breakfast (which is really just Kendra and Grey, the only two people who a, wake up at a normal hour and b, even bother with breakfast at all).

“Tonight is the first night of Passover,” Grey informs him.

“That’s uh, that's great, man,” Jax says, because he doesn’t really know what else to say. His vast knowledge of Passover includes matzah, something about killing a lamb, and that’s about it.

Maybe Grey can read his confusion, but at that moment the bay doors open to reveal Rip practically dragging a guilty-looking Sara and Ray in by the ears (something about Sara hitting on Michelangelo and Ray getting thrown out of the monastery trying to see Da Vinci, if Jax is following), and things get a bit hectic after that. Rip grabs his twenty-second century Keurig which somehow _materializes_ the coffee—Jax has learned not to ask—and chugs a cup of black espresso with alarming speed, all the while pinching the bridge of his nose because it is far too early for this "buffoonery."

Jax gets the hell out of the kitchen.

Later, he finds Martin setting the dinner table. The _Waverider_ doesn’t officially have a dining room—just a sad little island with some stools, but Grey’s making due.

“Can you, “Jax swallows, “can you tell me a little about Passover?” he asks. He could have asked Gideon, and both of them know it.

“You’re right to ask questions,” Grey replies, his chest swelling with pride. “Typically at a Passover Seder, the youngest member of the family asks the traditional four questions.”

Jax frowns. “What kinds of questions?”

So Grey launches into a lengthy explanation about the history of the holiday, the foods, the ritual. Jax listens—one, because it’s actually interesting, and two, that warm buzz under his skin tells him that this is important to Grey.

“Our ancestors were both enslaved, you and I,” says Grey, “though perhaps in different ways. Passover is significant because it was when we broke free from slavery in Egypt and found our freedom.”

“Technically, Kendra’s Egyptian,” Jax points out. “You think she’d be down for this?”

Grey blinks rapidly. “I rather think Ms. Saunders’ views on free choice are somewhat innovated, given her circumstances,” he remarks dryly.

Jax grins. “Right.”

“It’s a time for family to come together,” adds Grey. “Even one as admittedly dysfunctional as ours. In fact, I can picture it now: Mister Snart and Ms. Lance are hiding the afikoman, Mister Rory is drinking too much Manischewitz, and Mister Palmer is debating the scientific plausibility of the ten plagues.”

At this, Jax chuckles. “You’ve set up the table for eight,” he observes. “Do you think they’ll come?”

“Probably not,” Grey admits, his lips pursed. “The Italian Renaissance is much more exciting than a dinner centered around slavery and oppression.”

“I could tell them this is more important,” Jax offers. “I mean, it’s about freedom, right? That kind of thing strikes a chord with all of us. And isn’t it the duty of the youngest to, to…I dunno, get people to come?”

“Technically, we’re not family,” replies Grey, folding a napkin and setting it alongside a plate. “Nobody is obligated to join me.” He looks up and blinks again, adding, “Of course they are _welcome_ to, but I don’t expect anybody on our ship has enough patience to sit through a Seder.”

Jax snorts, because in some ways it is true. He retreats into the bowels of the ship to find Sara and Ray, who have been confined to their quarters. They’ll make a good start.

That evening Martin is astonished to find every seat at the kitchen island full. He catches the waves of pride washing off Jax in little energetic bursts, almost like the intense but pleasant sensation of biting into something extremely flavorful, and decides he does not need to know how Jax got everybody here. It is enough.

They even have to set another plate for a somewhat confused Michelangelo, who recalled nothing of the incident the next morning save a mysterious hangover for which he had no explanation. 

 

 

 

Things get easier, but even so the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. bond is not something one can entirely get “used to.”

Rip drops them all in Central City for a day off in June, claiming the _Waverider_ needs a pit stop.

“I didn’t take this girl for a gas-guzzler,” says Rory, who is polishing the barrel of his gun with a rag. The gun doesn’t actually need cleaning, but driving Rip up the wall with the little _squeak, squeak_ the rag makes as it rubs against the barrel is one of the few pleasures Rory’s going to get on this ship and damned if he’s going to stop now.

“She’s not,” Rip replies, rolling his eyes at the word _gas_ because honestly. They have been hiding out in the time vortex for over a day and he’s got a headache the size of Savage’s ego. They are all itching to stretch their legs.

“2000 and 2016 are years with some serious time energy in Central City,” he explains. “Temporal jumps leave a residual charge in the air, which the ship can use as fuel. I chose the latter date because, well, I am sure you are all eager to visit your families.” Rip, ignoring the scoff from Rory, swipes at something on the console and a holographic chart appears in the air. He points at the spiking like they are all supposed to get it and clears his throat when he is met with blank stares.

Sara, who is reading Tolstoy in the corner chair, asks, “What's so special about those years?” without glancing up.

“There has been a great deal of travel to and from these spots in time—mainly, we think, because of the Flash,” Rip says.

So that’s how they find themselves back home for an afternoon, and Jax is making a surprise dinner for his mom when it starts. At first, he just thinks it’s the excitement of finally getting a breath of fresh air, of being back in his own room and seeing his family again.

It does not take long to realize that it is a little more than that. It is—

Oh.

Jax grabs a potato and mashes it up. He can’t really blame the guy, but seriously? Timing, Grey.

He tries to block it out because this is something private, something he shouldn’t see. Grey has to know he can feel it, right? Jax pounds the spoon into the potatoes. He feels like a Peeping Tom. Dirty.

He prays to god Clarissa doesn’t know that there are now three people in her marriage.

It is deep and so, so sweet and Jax can’t take this right now. He rushes through preparing dinner, painfully crosses his legs when his mom comes home. It doesn’t help. Especially since after dinner, they start all over again—tender, like they are saying goodbye and slow, like they are trying to make it last.

 _God damn it,_ Jax thinks.

So he goes for a run until he is back at the ship, bent over, sweaty. He runs a hand over his brow, rubs his sore knee, and walks past Rory, who looks him over approvingly. The guy plays dumb most hours of the day, but he has an uncanny habit of seeing right through a person.

“Looks like you got some action,” Rory grunts.

He isn’t wrong.

 

 

 

In July the quest to save the world comes down to a two-man job when Vandal Savage picks a place no living human can go: Chernobyl.

Luckily for Martin and Jax, radiation is not a problem.

The fissile isotopic configurator, or as Jax so eloquently dubs it, Doomsday Device No. 2, takes a pair to disable: one at the sight of the mechanism, and one at an auxiliary control five miles away. Naturally.

Martin opts to make the trek. “Given the state of your anterior cruciate ligament, Jefferson, I think it’s best if I go,” he says. 

“How are you going to find it?” asks Jax.

Martin looks at Jax with a faintly bemused expression, and Jax doesn’t think it’s because of Rip’s comm in his ear.

And, like most of their plans, things go disastrously wrong and miraculously okay. Chernobyl is a satellite dead zone, effectively cutting them off from Gideon and the team’s guidance. And Savage, who is shrugging off the effects of radiation poisoning like one might shrug off a stubbed toe, catches Jax sneaking around Doomsday Device No. 2.

Savage, for once, goes down easy. Radiation sickness won't kill him but it certainly is a bitch, and without any of his backup around Jax has no problem tying up the bastard, torn ligament or not. He sticks Savage in an abandoned building and reminds himself to _seriously_ wash his hands when they get back.

Martin’s somewhere in the woods. It should be frightening. Everything is too bright, too…untouched, like the glass of a still lake in the morning. The snap of a twig beneath his shoe seems to echo. There is no one here but the animals who thrive on poison, but somehow, Martin feels at home.

Martin’s attracted to things that emit a certain energy. Nuclear leaks in the atmosphere. Fissile isotopic configurators. Jefferson. These things are considered lost, not accepted, dangerous. As they should be.

All the same, his cells yearn for them.

Jefferson is always with him—whether Martin is crowding around a holographic table on a twenty-second century spaceship, kidnapped by Soviet spies, or lost in a forest where his echo is taken by the wind.

Well, Martin says _lost,_ but he isn’t. Not really.

 

 

 

Jax had never pegged Captain Cold as the existential type. But then again, it is three in the morning and there is no better time for deep discussions in artificial light. Jax rounds the nearest corridor; catches the tail end of what Cold is saying.

“So why won’t you take us to our graves?”

“I think the reason for that is obvious,” Rip replies, tiredly. His office is full of clocks. Jax never really noticed them until now, just how many there are.

“What does it matter?” Cold asks, bitter, and Jax can practically hear him crinkling his nose. “To you, we’ve been dead for centuries.”

It is an odd thing to say, and Jax suddenly gets the feeling that those words don’t entirely belong to Snart. He looks at all those clocks again. One of them has a dancing ballerina on its face. Night has a way of shedding light on the strangest things.

“No, you haven’t,” Rip disagrees. “Contrary to popular belief Mister Snart, I see time in terms of people rather than points in history to be exploited. It’s what set me aside from the Time Masters.”

Jax wonders if he’ll be remembered as a person one day, not just a Legend or the Burning Man.

Somewhere aboard the ship, Martin awakens with a frown on his face.

 

 

 

September rolls around, Jax turns twenty-one, and the less ethical third of the _Waverider_ gets him shit-faced to the point where Martin spends most of that evening walking into various objects and laughing at things that are decidedly unamusing.  10

Then Jax gets into a bar fight (because of course) and stumbles back onto the ship with a shiner and a busted lip to show for it. He doesn't quite remember what the fight had been about, only that he had won.

Between the crunch of Excedrin tablets, Martin gives Jax a lengthy speech the next day about being careful.

Jax, hunched over a mug of Rip’s super materializing espresso, is too hung over to be truly angry. He knows the old man’s just worried. But still.

“You’re not my dad,” he says around broken lips. “I know you’re just lookin’ out for me Grey, but you don’t have to be so protective all the time.”

“I rather think I do,” replies Martin, crossing his arms. “Tell me, Jefferson,” he says, “when you’re Firestorm…do you know what it’s like to have someone you’ve merged with die?”  

Jax peers up at him. “You know I don’t,” he says.

Martin reaches for another Excedrin and chews thoughtfully before speaking again.

“You burn,” he says, after a while. His hands make a motion in the air. “It’s like a star is imploding in you. All of your cells are screaming. Ronald, when he…” His hands fall to his sides and his brow creases. “I never want to feel that way again.”

Jax purses his lips together. It is a very Martin-like gesture, minus the painful wince afterward. “I got a long time before I kick the bucket, Grey.”

“Do you know how long half of Firestorm can last alone before it proves fatal?” Martin asks, instead of answering.

Jax shakes his head.

“Seven months,” Martin informs him. “After the first month, you become irritable. By month three you just feel empty. You try to fill it with various comforts, but by month five, it becomes a physical, eating pain. You feel dizzy. Eventually, you start…collapsing. Breaking down.”

To this, Jax says nothing.

“As you know, merging with somebody is a profound and marvelous experience,” Martin continues. “We literally become each other. When you lose your other half it’s like a part of you is gone forever.”

Jax still says nothing.

Martin comes to sit next to him at the table. “The fact that we have a psychic bond doesn’t exactly mean I can read your mind,” he pries, softly.

Sighing, Jax shakes his head and mumbles, “I’m sorry, man.”

Martin pats the boy on the shoulder before easing himself off his feet. “Come,” he says. “Let’s see if Gideon doesn’t possess a magical panacea for hangovers. I daresay we could use one.”

“Hey Grey?”

Martin raises an eyebrow.

Jax rubs the side of his face, uncomfortable. “I’m not sayin’ you’re—I mean, it’s not that you’re _old,_ exactly, but—“he swallows. “If we can’t survive without each other, what’ll happen to me when, y’know, you’re not around anymore?”

“That is a very good question,” Martin says to himself, as they walk to the med bay, footfalls perfectly in sync.

“A very good question indeed.”

 

 

 

“I never thought my promising career in science would lead to,” Martin gestures to their current predicament (which is Snart and Rory fighting yet again over the ship’s temperature controls), “this. Did you ever think you’d be a mechanic on a futuristic time machine?”

“Hell no,” Jax says, shaking his head. “Me, I always wanted to be a football player. Ever since I was five.”

“Ah,” Martin says.

“What ‘bout you, Grey?”

“Isn’t that obvious, Jefferson?”

Jax gives him a pointed look. “No, not really.”

Martin’s eye dips down in a wink. “I wanted to be an alchemist.”

Jax laughs, hard.

 

 

 

They’re busy these days. Mostly because time needs fixing, and sometimes Jax just wants to punch Barry Allen in the face.

But occasionally, he has an afternoon here or there where he gets to do whatever the fuck he wants.

So he buys a jumbo bag of Doritos and calls Kendra.

She’s working as an archivist for a museum somewhere in Washington—not that anybody knows this. Except maybe Sara (Jax can never tell with her).

“I changed my name to Chay-Ara,” Kendra tells him, a smile in her voice. “I kind of like it.”

Jax smiles too, and moves closer to the window in his quarters so he can hear her better. Ever since they defeated Savage the ship’s had these odd, unexplained dead zones that have Rip scratching his head in confusion.

Those, and the random patches on the ship that seem colder than others.

“What’s it like, knowing you’re connected to someone else for the rest of your life?” Jax asks her.

“At first I tried to fight it,” Kendra replies. “I hated the idea that my destiny was tied to a man. You remember. Now though? It’s not that bad.”

Jax snorts.

“Okay,” Kendra says, laughing, “it’s not _too_ terrible. I mean yes, Carter’s got a ton of awful habits—“

“Definitely feel you there,” Jax says, around a handful of chips.

“—but I like to think I’m a good influence on him,” finishes Kendra. “You sort of have to accept it, work with it. Professor Stein is your partner. To resist the connection you two have would be a waste of energy.”

“Conservation of energy, I hear ya,” says Jax. The great thing is he knows all about thermodynamics now, even if he never went to college.

“Look, I gotta go,” he says, as he feels Grey walking back on the ship. “But thanks, Kendra.”

“Glad I could help. Tell the team we say hi.”

“And uh, good luck with Carter. You let him know if he tries any _funny business,_ I’ll come over there and stick him in Sparta for a couple days. 11 See how he likes _that,_ huh.”

Kendra laughs again, only it’s sharper around the edges. “Oh, Jax,” she says, “look what happened last time. I pity the man who thinks he can control _me.”_

 

 

 

Sometimes, in the early morning just after waking, Martin thinks about that two-way street. He knows that some of the shops are meant to be closed, but when you are dealing with metaphors it gets hard to tell which shops those are.

“I feel like I’m becoming you,” Jax says to him one day. “Don’t you feel it?”

Martin replies that the molecular bonds have never been tested on a long-term basis before and that it is entirely possible that in the end, Firestorm is meant to be a single organism. Permanently. It doesn’t really ease Jax’s mind, but Martin hadn't expected it to.

Stoller and Rhine are dusty on his shelf at home. They could never explain this, anyway.

 _I own my own mind,_ Jax thinks, and for a moment—just a split moment, nothing more, Martin can almost hear him.

"I've been inside your mind," he tells Jax. "It impresses me. You know you're a lot smarter and stronger than you give yourself credit for."

Raising an eyebrow, Jax says, "I'm not a scientist or a genius, Grey."

"And yet you are still teaching me," Martin replies. "How about that? Even if we do indeed get closer, the fact that we are two separate people is something not easily forgotten."

Jax asks, "How can you be sure?"

“Firestorm is beautiful,” Martin says. “Part of its beauty is its ability to be one _and_ two. While your fears are understandable, as long as you hold on to what is important, to what makes you _you,_ I believe permanent merging is highly unlikely.”

"You think so?" Jax manages a smile. "'Cause I'd hate to become an old geezer."

Martin rolls his eyes. "More than I'd hate to become a jaded youth who listens to hip-hop and thinks his french fries should be dipped in milkshakes?"

"Woah, woah, I'm gonna stop you right there. Hip-hop is _art,_ man. Have you even seen _Hamilton?_ "

"I assume you mean on the ten dollar bill?"

 

 

 

Martin still pictures the shops every now and then. He can see which ones he shouldn’t go into now. In his mind, he walks over to them, flips their _OPEN_ signs so they read _CLOSED,_ and sprinkles black ash along the doors because those belong to Jefferson.

They are really two, even if you only see one streak lighting up the sky.

They are Firestorm. But they are also Jefferson Jackson and Martin Stein.

And they burn.

 

 

_End._

 

* * *

 

 

1 _Telepathic Dreams,_ an existing, unpublished paper by Robert J. Stoller.

2 _ESP-60,_ an existing meta-analysis by Joseph Banks Rhine, who was one of the leading figures in 20th century ESP research.

3 Here Stein and Jax are discussing propellants for rocket engines. They can't quite figure out what the _Waverider_ uses for fuel, as Rip has withheld this information on the basis of it being too "influential" to the timeline.

4 Contrary to popular belief, Mick can actually cook. He just gets carried away staring at the stove—Gideon has electric stove so Mick just lets the food burn until it catches on fire.

5 Ray actually can't use the bathroom in the atom suit. He got too caught up with other functions of the suit to worry about a waste disposal system (besides, after Cisco's numerous catheter jokes during his last visit to Central City, Ray's somewhat lost the taste for designing his own indoor plumbing).

6 They tend to go for Rip's older stuff, despite Rip's protests that 2087 brandy became rarer than diamonds after the fall of the French Republic.

7 He doesn't count Jessica Steele from junior year, because only an idiot would compare hooking up behind the bleachers to Stein's marriage.

8 'Picks up' in this case is best interpreted as 'holds up a Domino's at gunpoint and demands extra cheese.'

9 Jax is determined to find out if the _Waverider_ runs on an APCP propellant or if it actually does use a tacheon-hydrogen combo, like Grey hypothesizes.

10 To his embarrassment, Martin spent the better part of that evening giggling uncontrollably over 1) the fact that Rip's pantry has forks _and_ sporks, 2) Gideon's pronunciation of the word "retire," and 3) the squishy memory-foam chairs in the control room.

11 For Sara, Ancient Sparta was akin to Star City 2046 for Mick. After three days there Sara and Kendra managed to claim a third of the city-state's land, transfer all the money of corrupt officials to the poor, and become athletic champions in the process.

 

 


End file.
